Article 370 Case Hearing : Live Updates From Supreme Court [Day 16]

Dave: For 70 years, if the government of India- order after order exercises powers under Art 370, can it now lie and say that Art 370 is temporary? That's how they've acted. Merely because government has changed does it mean it has become temporary?

Dave: 370 was never meant to be temporary. The only reason why it was made temporary was to give the Constituent Assembly a right.

Dave: It is not the case of government of India that 370 has not worked for the last 73 years. Not one example to show that 370 has failed. Everytime the government wanted to apply anything, it was automatically accepted by state of J&K

Dave: Whatever their (the drafter's) intention was they have mentioned in the constitution, we don't need to travel outside of it.

Sr Adv Dushyant Dave: Whichever way your lordships look at this- democracy, federalism, rule of law- each one of them is a basic structure of the Constitution. Every one of those principles are completely thrown out of the window by this.

Dave: There are two powers that are fiercely independent - Constituent power and the derivate power. We have now a third situation where a constitutional power is to be exercised by the President.

Dhavan: The antecedent speeches are totally and completely irrelevant because as soon as 370 is born, that is the provision that is the incorporated provison.

Sr Adv Dhavan concludes his arguments.

Dhavan: What is the relief we're seeking? All your lordships have to adjudicate is the temporality of Article 370...and whether mandatory provisions are defeasible.

Dhavan: The Constitution actually divides itself into two halves- a federation of state and the second part- devolutionary provisions, that is the UTs.

Dhavan: Nobody has argued that the Indian Constitution is not sovereign or that Art 1 doesn't apply across the board. But I had earlier made a distinction between internal and external sovereignty.

Dhavan: How sovereignty is to be exercised is what one means by the internal sovereignty. It is the exercise of sovereignty distributed throughout the constitution.

Dhavan: The basic structure applies not as a constitutional limitation but as a set of overarching principles which are the part of the Constitution.

Dhavan: They're unable to provide a roadmap for restoration of statehood. They too are in essence are arguing that the Reorganization Act is transitional in nature. A time will come when statehood is restored. This is no roadmap at all. It is entirely illusory.

Dhavan: It is true that the centre is not bound by all your recommendations and subsequent changes can take place. But this doesn't take away from the fact that Art 3 is a mandatory provision.